28£ 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



removed. This allowed me to get a 

 layiug queen from a nucleus about 

 once in nine or ten days instead of 

 once in thirteen days. I tried to in- 

 troduce virgin (jueens that were sev- 

 eral days old. If I could have succeed- 

 ed it would have still further short- 

 ened the time, but I never could make 

 a success of introducing a virgin that 

 was over three days old. A newly 

 hatched virgin was always accepted, 

 but the older she became, the gi-eater 

 the difficulty in introducing her. Right 

 in this line I am happy to say that Mr. 

 Geo. W. Phillips, the apiarist at the 

 A. I. Root establishment, has hit upon 

 a plan Avhereby a virgin several days 

 old may be released in a few hours 

 after the removal of the old queen. 

 Gleanings descril)es it as follows:— 



"Our Mr. Geo. W. Phillips, of the 

 apiary, lias struck upon an idea which, 

 if not new, is something I have not 

 seen in print. The bane of all queen- 

 rearing yards, or in some, at least, is 

 in getting queens fertilized. It is easy 

 enough to make artificial cups; to graft 

 them with royal jelly and selected lar- 

 vae; it is easy enough to get large, 

 beautiful ripe, peanut-shaped cells; it 

 is easy enough to get the occupants 

 hatched; but getting them fertilized- 

 aye, there's the rub. Mr. Phillips has 

 shortened the process by nearly a half, 

 and at the same time reduced the risk 

 of loss. Well, what is it? 



Here is a colony, we will say, that 

 Is queenless. Instead of giving it one 

 caged virgin, to be released on the 

 candy plan, he gives to it two of fly- 

 ing age; but the loose slide protecting 

 the candy is removed, exposing the 

 food in one cage, leaving it in the 

 other cage covered by the slide. The 

 bees will release the queen of the first 

 mentioned. In a day or so she will be- 

 come fertilized, and go to laying. The 

 other virgin is kept caged in the mean 

 time. As soon as queen No. 1 is laying, 



she is taken out, and at the same time 

 the slide covering the candy to the 

 other cage is set back, the bees re- 

 lease queen No. 2. Before that is 

 done, another virgin is put into the 

 hive, caged with the candy protected. 

 Queen No. 2 is accepted, and ere long 

 begins to lay. She is removed, and 

 the slide of cage No. 3 is slid back, 

 and another virgin put in, and so on 

 the cycle proceeds. The point is here: 

 Iloth queens while in the hive acquire 

 the scent of the bees and of the comb, 

 ^o that when one queen is removed 

 the other qiieen is already introduced 

 except releasing, which the bees do in 

 a few liours, and she again Is in a 

 fair way to become the mother of the 

 tlock. During the interim between the 

 time the queen is released and when 

 she becomes laying, the queen is ac- 

 quiring the scent of the colony. 



But Mr. Phillips goes one step 

 further. Here is a colony that is not 

 (lueenless, but we wish to sell the 

 queen in two or three days. He accord- 

 ingly cages the virgin in the hive, and 

 three days after removes the laying 

 queen, exposes the candy of the caged 

 virgin so the bees can release her, 

 when she is immediately accepted. 

 There, don't you see there is a lapse 

 of only a few hours of actual queen- 

 lessness? We will say that, in five 

 hours after the laying queen is re- 

 moved, the virgin is stalking abroad 

 over the combs, quite at home. 



This thing is no experiment. We 

 have been testing it for weeks to see 

 if it would work under all conditions. 



If the virgins are hatched in nur- 

 series, and a supply of them is kept 

 on hand, no colony need be queenless 

 more than long enough for the bees 

 to eat out the candy, which I should 

 say would take about five hours as we 

 provision the cages. By this plan one 

 can get almost a double output of 

 queens. 



